Little G: Fall Benchmark Assessment

Little G just had his fall benchmark assessment.

He is 6 years old and in 1st grade (but taking 2nd grade curriculum, soon to be 3rd grade math). I asked if he could be assessed for reading fluency, which they typically do not assess as part of the fall benchmark for 1st graders. His teacher (all K12 students are assigned teachers through their state's school) was super about it and had the assessment up and ready in less than 5 minutes. She's great.


Little G read 115 words per minute. For perspective, Little G reads within average WCPM expectations for 4-6th graders in fall. Crazy. It's a little scary having a 6 year-old who is smarter than you, trust me on this. Ha!

For our next assessment, Mrs. C. has asked Little G to have a book to share with her. He is currently running back and forth from his room with various books, asking, "Mom? Do you think she would like this book? What about this book? Do you think she wants to hear about anatomy? What about cats?" He has two months to decide, hopefully that will be enough time. Heh.

Stuff People Say to Speech Parents

When my son was just 2 years old, he was referred for a speech evaluation by the doctors who diagnosed him with autism. At age 2, Little G had the speech of a 12-15 month-old. Speech therapy was unavailable for various reasons, and we were expected to play the waiting game. Thing is, I wasn't having any of it. I started researching various options and found Baby Signing Time. I cannot even begin to express what an asset those DVDs were. We bought a few and borrowed many through the inter-library loan program, which brings materials from libraries throughout the county to those who request them. It prepared Little G well for speech therapy when we eventually did obtain services for him; prior to learning sign language, he had resorted to massive meltdowns any time he wanted or needed something because the stress of what it took for him to communicate was utterly overwhelming.

Now, as his 7th birthday approaches, he still struggles with speech but has come a very long way. His official diagnosis is "expressive-receptive speech disorder", which basically means that he has two-way communication deficits; there is difficulty processing what goes into his brain and what his brain can do in terms of speech production. It is a disorder, not a delay, and it will likely be lifelong.

Early on, when I shared with others that my son had a speech disorder and was in therapy for it, I heard a lot of trite statements regurgitated almost verbatim. I never realized that just about everyone, for example, has a family member who didn't say a word until age 4, at which point they spoke a complete and very witty sentence and never stopped talking for more than five minutes in the 40 years since. Also abundant are younger siblings who just never bothered to speak because their older sibling(s) did it for them. Another standard response was, "He'll talk when he's ready/when he wants to."

None of these things are helpful or reassuring, unless your point is to reassure me that you are completely clueless about my son's diagnosis. These all imply also that I need some sort of coddling or reassurance that my son will someday be "normal" by your definition, or that we have something to feel bad about. He's already normal by my definition and always has been, and frankly, I don't really care about your definition. Everyone has their challenges, this is one of his, and it's not a big deal. It is frustrating for him, and sometimes for us, due to the nature of the challenges posed by a two-way communication disorder. But it can be dealt with, just like people deal with any other challenge in life.

You may be wondering how, then, to respond to a friend or family member whose child has just been diagnosed with a speech disorder. First, don't go repeating some tripe you've heard regurgitated ad nauseum by others. You don't know the child's projected trajectory, and you may not have ever personally encountered a child with the same disorder, so you end up coming across as offensive and sounding like an ass. Personally, I am open to questions. When people ask questions, it tells me they are interested in understanding rather than just pretending they understand. If you have experience with a speech success story, feel free to share it. If you have experience with any speech disorder, feel free to share it. We probably just need you to listen, and if you feel the need to offer something but don't know what, simply letting us know that you have confidence in how we're handling it is nice to hear.

Our Tuesday

Day 6 of the new school year, and 6 year-old Little G has completed 23% of 2nd grade math. He keeps me busy. The great thing about this is that getting to the math portion of his studies is an incentive to get through the less desirable portions of his day. And speaking of less desirable...


The changes to the curriculum aren't, in my opinion, positive ones. I'm as stunned as anyone could be that I have anything less than glowing to say about K12, but this splitting of the language arts into multiple categories is confusing, time-consuming, and annoying. It makes it appear like a lot more work when it really isn't. It doesn't streamline anything; the new format is kind of like a jar of marbles being dropped on a hard floor - it's all over the place and it's an effort to go looking for everything.

They also took a very my-kid-friendly version of language arts (i.e. lots of books and lessons about comprehension) and replaced it with a bunch of rote memory tasks, far fewer books, and these lessons where my speech-impaired son has to record himself reading passages. Even with the mic turned all the way up, and my little guy practically yelling, the recordings still need to be redone five times because they are deemed "too quiet" by the system. After language arts today, Little G was exhausted and didn't want to speak at all. He also decided to forego his typical reading time, which he usually does while Reezle is doing the portions of her lessons which require me to be present. I don't like this trajectory. At this rate, his love of reading and language arts is going to be kaput by the end of the month.

On a more positive note, Reezle loves Spanish. This language course seems to be to her what math is to Little G; I can get her to complete just about any school task without complaint as long as she gets to do extra Spanish. Win! A few of our current words are:

so/bear, rata/rat, tigre/tiger, amigos/friends, uno/one, dos/two, hueco/hole, pelota/ball, zapatos/shoes, ropa/clothing, sucia/dirty, jardin/garden, con/with (con mis amigos - with my friends), roca/rock.


This isn't a complete list, it's just what I recall off the top of my head. I've been practicing them repeatedly with the kiddos, in addition to some various words they already know, and trying to build from there. I really like how the course is set up, from what we've done thus far.

Like the English language arts courses, Reezle also has recordable portions. She likes them, though, and they are neither challenging nor the lengthy passages G is required to read aloud. And on that note, it is time to get back at it.

Happy homeschooling!

Heading Into Week Two

We spent the weekend working ahead on some of our school subjects and getting familiarized with Reezle's Spanish course. I had been waiting on her teacher to explain how to log in to the course, but I hadn't heard back. As it turns out, simply logging in using Reezle's user info did the trick. She completed the first 3 units, and the course looks great! Little G is even following along.

Reezle spent a good amount of time enjoying some books and her favorite Poptropica computer game, while Little G worked on Math almost non-stop from the moment he woke up each day until he went to bed. It is rare to see the little guy without his math workbook. He encountered a bit of frustration when doing math problems which required him to borrow more than once, especially when zeros were involved. He is an extreme perfectionist and has absolutely no patience for his own mistakes. It took me a bit of time to convince him that it is a perfectly acceptable part of learning to make mistakes, and that these can even help us to learn better. He wasn't having it at first, but he eventually calmed down and accepted it. He did a retake on his assessment, and scored 100% the second time. He was fine after that, of course.

We also did some writing, vocabulary, analogies, and spelling, but typing out all of our spelling words for each unit - especially at the rate at which my kids are currently burning through them - is tedious and probably not enjoyable to read anyhow. Suffice it to say they are tackling some pretty challenging words and doing an exceptional job. I'm very proud of both of them.

Much like last year, we are continuing our hoopdance practice and doing mostly that and running for our physical education. We did a lot of it over the past week. I incorporate nutrition and information about how physical activity benefits the body into our PE curriculum. It seems there is a huge overlap between our health and PE material, so I kind of wing it with how much individual time we're giving to each. We probably do a lot more physical activity than I log for PE, all of it educational, but I was actually told to stop logging it last year due to the amount of hours. Heh. Better a bit more than needed than not enough, in my opinion.

On the agenda for tomorrow is Study Island, in addition to our typical studies. They changed the format and wow, what a positive change. Little G has his first Aimsweb assessment of the year later this week, and we're also planning a family field trip in the very near future. I love getting back into a routine again!

Hoopdance

One of the questions I often get from people about homeschooling is, surprisingly, about gym class (i.e. physical education). People are curious if we are required to do it at all, and if we are, how we go about it. While there are a lot of ways to fulfill this part of our curriculum, one of our year-round favorites is hoopdance! I started about 2 years ago.

It didn't take long for both of my children to become interested as well. My husband and I started making hoops, and the kids each have their own custom-sized hoops. They are really quick at picking up new skills, and they have so much fun!

And it's super adorable. And great exercise. And it builds strength, promotes flexibility, and helps them with balance and coordination. And...well, I could praise hooping all day long. Mostly, it's just something we really love to do.

The best part about doing PE this way? We can hoop at home in the living room, out in the yard, at the beach, on road trips when we stop for a break, at the park, and so many more places that we probably couldn't come up with a comprehensive list if we tried. We're not confined to any particular space, and we love that!

The kiddos also have fun decorating their own hoops. Heck, even I enjoy making pretty hoops. My only problem? I want to keep them all! Heh.

PS: It's September already? Whew. What happened to August!?

Bird Logic

G: Sweet, sweet, I'm so sweet. That's the call of Yellow Warblers.

Reezle: Yellow Warblers don't use contractions.

G: Like Androids?

Reezle: Yep.

G: So they're Androids!? Woah. Cats eat Androids!?

Time Out

Me: So, G, why are you in time-out?

G: Because I was harassinating the cat.